GW Wraith step by step - part 1

The mini


I painted this miniature for 6th CofC Miniature Exchange. The reason behind this choice was lots of space for textures and freehands. Recently I paint mostly bigger scale, and ME mini has to be 28mm, so this wraith is win/win for me. Within the range of scale and enough of nice surfaces for some experiments.
By the time this SBS is published, the mini is with the recipient, but now I can only hope, he'll like it.

Preparation:
As you can see I skipped preparation of the mini. I was so eager to start working on this piece, that I forgot to take pictures. But the process of preparing this wraith for painting is pretty straightforward.
The mini consist of 5 plastic parts:
- 3 parts of cloak,
- hands and scythe,
- head (3 options available).
The parts fit together nicely, and the cast itself is clean, with good details. The assembly was easy and only small amount of putty was necessary to get rid of the junction.


The base

I decided to go for one of Scibor's bases from egyptian base kit.
I had an idea that the wraith is rising from the remains of a tombstone or something like that. To emphasise this effect I was thinking about somehow mixing the colours of the wraith and the stone on the places where they join. Or maybe simulate the 'sucking' of some sort undead energy from the stone to the wraith by painting thin, glowing 'veins' (in the wraith's colour) on the stone, gathering at the joining points.
But eventually I ran out of time to do that, so the message isn't that clear.

Preparation:
The Scibor's base was a little too big for the regular Warhammer base, and for what I was going to do with it, so I decided to modify it 'slightly'. On the photo below there is a base before and after modification. As you can see, I cut big chunks of resin, getting rid of most of the 'earth' and sand. I letf the insect on the cheek. I know it supposed to be a scarab, but it can also be a common forest beetle. I also separated the 'shield' a bit from the face, because after removing some of the earth from this side, it looked somehow odd.

After reducing the size of the base quite significantly, I made sure that there is a place underneath for the little rock wraith is attached to. I decided to glue it on the side, with both long ends of the robe touching the statue, to make it look like he's rising from the stone. I had to cut the outer side of the rock, and mask it with some sandy paste.

To make sure that both, base and wraith, are securely attached to the black base I pinned them together.

And now just a bit of  putty, sandy paste and few small rocks, and the ground is ready.

To emphasise the effect of life being sucked out of the terrain by creation of the wraith I decided to add few fern leaves half dry and dead. I know, a lot of Scibor's bases have sculpted ferns on it, and my idea isn't that original, but using etched brass fern should give me a bit more natural look than sculpted leaves.

Because etched brass is rather delicate, I thought it would be better to keep it and separately from the base and glue onto it when all painting is done. That's also the reason that all the moss was glued at the very end.

So at the moment the whole mini is ready for primer.
But more on that in the next episode:)


cheers

'e M

VCofCME & Emperors Champion

cmon

My exchange mini painted for Superhessianv reached finally it's destination, so I can post some pictures of the finished mini  and WIP.
 

As you can see painting 'black' armor wasn't easy and smooth process;p But I guess I learned something from that lesson (i.e. I know how to paint  gray armor now;p)
Mostly because I had no idea where I am heading  with the armor, at the beginning I painted it with Field Blue from Vallejo Model Color,  and had to fight all the time to hide this background colour under more brownish hues. But I guess I can treat a layer of Field Blue as an underpainting, that gives final colours something extra.

For a base I decided to use one of the Scibor's basing kits, few bits of cork, sandy paste and grounded sponge. It's rather simple, so I hope it doesn't drag viewer's eye from the mini.

I placed it all on the top of screw top lid from one of old GW paint. Now I think I could paint it as well, but the mini is out of my hands now, so it's too late.

If you'd like to see other minis painted for this exchange, here is VCofCME gallery.


cheers

'eM

Scarification take 2 and misterious WIP

 
Unfortunately I destroyed the first one while cleaning the bust for priming, so I had to do new one.
I guess the second try looks better:P



 And here, my misterious project;p
Probably everyone knows the model by now, but shhhh, it's a secret:D

Little WIP update

Just as a quick update, that are two projects I'm working on now:

Red Box Games High Elf

And myserious GW piece I shouldn't really show in whole:

Both are still early WIPs so plenty of work ahead of me.
But to make the whole thing harder for me, I decided to paint both of them using different techniqes.
First one is as normal preshaded in b/w and then I'm just adding glazes of colour, finishing touches and freehands.
With the other one I'm trying new method of painting black (as you can see it's more brown than black now;p) and I'm building colours more traditional way, a lot harder for me:)

Cheers

'eM

That's what I've done so far

Here are minis I've painted in the past, starting from early 2009. I'm not gonna describe every and each of them, but I think it might give you an idea who I am as a painter, what's my style and what can you expect in the future.

Miniature painted for 3rd Chest of Colors Mini Exchange  for Szczurek.

2nd place in 'Monster' category at Salute 2011.

Miniature painted for 4rd Chest of Colors Mini Exchange for Irkuck.

And yes, I know he should be in blue armor, but it's 'emo librarian':)

cheers
m